46 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



was intended for the dinner of the invalid. In future we 

 committed the pigeons into the sick man's charge, and 

 they were cooked by his friends, but the Ojibways 

 laughed loud and long at the excellent practical joke they 

 had enjoyed, and for many days after they reminded 

 Lambert, the interpreter, about the sick man and his 

 pigeons and partridges. " Tell him," said one waggish 

 fellow, pointing to me, " shoot pigeon for Iroquois, Ojib- 

 way eat it, do Iroquois much good." A joke lasts an 

 Indian a long time, and is continually repeated, both in 

 canoe and in camp • it never appears to lose interest or 

 grow stale. 



The former extension of Dog Lake in a westerly direc- 

 tion for fourteen or fifteen miles, up the valley of the 

 river of the same name, is shown by numerous sand 

 ridges which intersect it nearly at right angles to its 

 course, as well as by the probable former extension of 

 a prolongation of the sand ridge which has been described 

 as occurring at the Great Dog Portage, across the valley 

 of the Little Dog Eiver. 



Great Dog Lake appears to be a centre of commu- 

 nication to which some degree of speculative interest 

 may be attached ; from one of the deep westerly bays, 

 our guides pointed out the direction through which a 

 communication with Thousand Lakes, on the other side 

 of the water shed, has long been known to exist. No 

 doubt the country through which this communication 

 passes embraces extensive marshes, yet, if it avoids the 

 objectionable ascent of Prairie BAver and Portage, it may 

 be worthy of attention. Thousand Lakes, or Milles Lacs, 

 as it is more commonly called, is eight hundred and 

 thirty-two feet above Lake Superior, consequently one 

 hundred and twenty-two feet above Dog Lake. 



This route has long been known to the voyageurs and 



